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Engineers ARE good. The player at the keyboard is a different matter though.

THIS.
Engineers are great, I love having one in my party, and I don't think I've ever seen anyone turn them away.
They aren't played as much as some other classes simply because they are a rather funky class that doesn't quite fit in a fantasy world as much as some people would like...but it's a fluff thing rather than an effectiveness thing.

Not really for the one in Frostgorge, it's just an Active Event where he attacks you out of nowhere because you look challenging or something like that, then he goes friendly after the fight, says something like "it was an honour, until next time" and fades away.

There are a total of nine in the game at the moment, to my knowledge. One in Snowden Drifts, one in Brisban Wildlands, three in Mount Maelstrom, one in Straits of Devastation, one in Malchor's Leap, one in the personal story, and one that was temporarily in game as part of The Lost Shores content in Kessex Hills.

There's also one in Frostgorge Sound. Nearby the Dungeon, on the west side of the island underwater. Fought him the other day.

my thoughts, you have them. When this is the most complained profession, why does it rarely get nerfs?

FACT: People thought Wa/Mos (aka Wammos) were overpowered when GW1 originally came out for the longest time. Till the playerbase eventually wised up, realised that Frenzy was good, Enchantment Removal existed, and that Healing Breeze + Mending had no place on a Warrior's bar.

The reason is generally the same in all these cases; Lack of understanding. People get beaten hard by something (or in the case of GW1's Wammo, fail to harm something or end his team due to him carrying a hard Rez) often because the skill level required to use it effectively is low, and claim imbalance and overpoweredness when facing a similiar skilled opponent of the offending class (seems at lower levels of play the profession is much easier to use). However, the overall potential of the profession doesn't neccessarily outweigh that of other professions, it's just alot easier to pick-up and requires less effort to play well (though that doesn't mean it requires less effort to play at the highest echelons of potential neccessarily, as was once again demonstrated in Guild Wars 1's Warriors - easy to pick up and play, but a challenge to truly master).

The balance of variety takes precendence over balance in ease of use.
I mean they could make all classes the same, and just as easy to play, but the game would becoming boring and far too two-dimensional.
Or they could make the Warrior overall weaker to offset the ease of use compared to some other professions, but that would doom the profession and as a result in the game's mid-life (when the player base in general becomes knowledgable and able enough to use the professions that are more difficult to play well too), they'd disappear altogether from the servers, which is not a desirable outcome at all.

This was a bad idea. It is against everything Guild Wars stood for.
That being said, I understand why they are adding them, and there was a way they could have made it work without compromising the principals and foundations the game was built upon.

If they had made the stats exactly the same as those on Exotic items of the same level, with the only change being the Infusion slot as extra, this could have worked.

Infusing could have provided protection against Spectral Agony or whatever they are using it for, relevant only to this dungeon, and then global superficial bonuses elsewhere:
10% Magic Find, 10% Gold Drop Increase, 10% Increased Dungeon Token Gain or 10% Increased Karma Gain as examples of the type of bonuses they could offer. Maybe even 10% Crafting Material Requirement Reduction/Rebate.

This would make the items desirable to get and worth working towards, without screwing over the player balance (and having the bonuses you would be getting ones which help you get the stuff you need for Legendaries also would make it a logicial progression step for going from Exotics into Legendaries).

However, it seems ANet lack the intelligence or foresight for something like that these days, and have now created yet another wasted opportunity that weakens the game instead of strengthens it.